Many automobile drivers either choose or require more or additional information about the status of their vehicle's engine than is made available by the manufacturer of the vehicle. This may be especially true for owners of what are termed custom vehicles or vehicles in which the engines have been modified. As well, drivers of vehicles involved in racing and other similar activities may have a critical need for more information regarding the status of their vehicle's engine.
An engine has many measurable properties that may be monitored. Often, it is very important for a driver to monitor revolutions per minute (RPMs) of an engine, the amount of oil and its pressure in the engine, the air and fuel mixture ratio in the engine, as well as the water temperature. Additional measurable properties include voltage, engine temperature, quantity of fuel and other consumable liquids, and the like. However, most car manufacturers do not choose to make the instruments or gauges necessary for such measurements available from the factory, or provide “idiot lights” in place thereof to warn the owner only after a problem has occurred.
Thus, owners are forced to add the instruments or gauges to their vehicles on their own. Since the vehicles have not been designed to accommodate the additional instruments, the resulting addition of instruments can be unsightly as well as posing a potential safety risk. Some instrument clusters or gauge pods, designed for additional instruments, such as the A-Pillar instrument pods, can obstruct the driver's view of the road, while other gauge pods are positioned such that constant monitoring of these instruments can significantly distract the driver from the road.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a manner of mounting supplemental instruments in a vehicle that alleviates the above problems.